Showing titles in Saints & Sainthood

Helen Castor tells afresh the gripping story of the peasant girl from Domremy who hears voices from God, leads the French army to victory, is burned at the stake for heresy, and eventually becomes a saint. But unlike the traditional narrative, a story already shaped by the knowledge of what Joan would become and told in hindsight, Castor's Joan of Arc: A History takes us back to 15th century France and tells the story forwards.

St. Cyril's (313 - 386 AD) famous 23 lectures were delivered to the catechumens in Jerusalem who were being prepared for baptism. They are best considered in two parts. The first 18 are known as the catechetical lectures or Homilies, while the rest are often called the mystagogic catecheses, since they deal with the mysteries: the sacraments of baptism, confirmation, and the Eucharist.

The Rule of St. Benedict has governed monastic communities for centuries, but it is far more than a standard religious text. The Rule is, above all, a handbook for living a deliberate life - no matter your religious background or beliefs. It teaches the importance of contemplation and silence, of solitude, and the power of community and unity.

What brings us real and lasting happiness? Although just about every marketing firm, self-help guru, and man on the street has an answer, very few, if any, understand true happiness. It doesn’t come from power, pleasure, popularity, or possessions. So, what is happiness and how do we find it? In How to Be Happy, author Matt Fradd relies on the help of St. Thomas Aquinas to show what will - and what won’t - bring us happiness in this life. By making the thought of Aquinas utterly accessible for today, How to Be Happy is an invaluable guide to a good life.

In this famous treatise, St. Augustine (AD 354 - 430) covers the question of the role of free will in our lives and how it contrasts with the role of God's grace. He gives scriptural arguments to show that we cannot earn the grace of God, yet this does not deny the role that free will plays in our own salvation.

This inspiring book gives you a splendid example of how to live as a Christian in a secular environment that can be indifferent or hostile to your faith. For Elisabeth Leseur had two great loves: God, and her husband Felix. Felix loved Elisabeth as well; yet to their mutual sorrow, he couldn’t share the life of the spirit that Elisabeth cherished.

How is it possible that a chain-smoking socialist, a teenage video gamer, an opium addict, a satanic high priest, a disabled beggar, and a self-absorbed mean girl became saints? Popular itinerant missionary Meg Hunter-Kilmer will stretch your preconceived notions of holiness by exploring the lesser-known lives of seventy-five extraordinary people whose human struggles and limitations reveal the power of God's grace.

Canonized on June 16, 2002, Padre Pio of Pietrelcina (1887-1968) was a Capuchin monk and mystic whose life was marked with miracles and wonders, but who said that his only desire was “to be a poor friar who prays.” In this intimate biography, you will see the results of this humble Capuchin's prayers and discover for yourself the source of his great hope. This updated edition contains five new chapters covering the years between beatification and canonization, St. Pio’s continued work in people’s lives, and the devotion of St. John Paul II to this extraordinary saint.

No Greater Love is the essential wisdom of Mother Teresa - the most accessible and inspirational collection of her teachings ever published. This definitive volume features Mother Teresa on love, prayer, giving, service, poverty, forgiveness, Jesus, and more. No Greater Love is a passionate testament to Mother Teresa's deep hope and abiding faith in God and the world. It will bring readers into the heart of this remarkable woman, showing Mother Teresa's revolutionary vision of Christianity in its graceful, poetic simplicity.

R. Andrew Chesnut offers a fascinating portrayal of Santa Muerte, a skeleton saint whose cult has attracted millions of devotees over the past decade. Although condemned by mainstream churches, this folk saint's supernatural powers appeal to millions of Latin Americans and immigrants in the US. Devotees believe the Bony Lady (as she is affectionately called) to be the fastest and most effective miracle worker, and as such, her statuettes and paraphernalia outsell those of the Virgin of Guadalupe and Saint Jude, two other giants of Mexican religiosity.

The Interior Castle by St. Teresa of Avila presents a remarkable description of the entire spiritual life from the first release from mortal sin into sanctifying grace through the Mystical Marriage of the soul with Christ as a journey through what she called The Interior Castle. She sees the soul as a magnificent castle full of spacious and well-lit rooms or mansions, each of which leads deeper into the heart of the castle to the seat of the king.

In 1929, nearly 400 years after the deaths of Saints Thomas More and John Fisher, G.K. Chesterton observed in words equally attributable to Fisher, “Blessed Thomas More is more important at this moment than at any moment since his death, even perhaps the great moment of his dying; but he is not quite so important as he will be in a hundred years.” Robert J. Conrad, Jr. anticipates Chesterton’s 100-year mark in a collection of stories from the lives of More and Fisher, demonstrating how their sanctity and integrity carried them and those who loved them through tumultuous times.

In 1957, at 27 years old, Father Aloysius Schwartz of Washington, D.C. asked to be sent to one of the saddest places in the world: South Korea in the wake of the Korean War. Just a few months into his priesthood, he stepped off the train in Seoul into a dystopian film. Squatters with blank stares picked through hills of garbage. Paper-fleshed orphans lay on the streets like leftover war shrapnel. These scenes pierced him.

Deeply rooted in Christian tradition, The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius are poignant meditations on spirituality, often used in retreats to facilitate spiritual growth. Since its inception in 1524, countless Christians have been invigorated and challenged by these exercises, as their heads, and minds, have been opened to God's will.

Saint Joseph stands close to Jesus and Mary at the heart of the gospel story. Yet, he remains largely in the background, silent and steady. Not surprisingly, Christians throughout the ages have pondered deeply this mystery that is Joseph.

The book recounts the life of the Virgin Mary and the divine plan both for creation and the salvation of souls. According to María de Ágreda, the book was mostly dictated to her by the Virgin Mary herself. The book moves between describing the Trinity, the Virgin Mary's life, and providing spiritual guidance to the author, which also spiritually benefits the listener. The book describes the virtues and how the listener ought to conduct his or her life using the Virgin Mary as a model for holiness.

In 1892, a young man left his home in the coastal foothills of Lebanon in search of a better life. Coming to America with his newlywed wife, he found work as a traveling peddler, before settling on a small farm in central Nebraska. Years later, personal tragedy and an unexpected midnight visit from a saint changed the course of his life. Seeing the desperate need of his fellow orthodox Christians and heeding God’s call, he would spend the rest of his life traversing the Great Plains as a circuit-riding priest, known to his thousands of parishioners as Father Nicola Yanney.

The late Fr. Amorth—well-known as an exorcist —enjoyed over two decades of a close friendship with the holy, quirky Padre Pio, whom he considered his spiritual father. Adding his own personal experience to a foundation of biographical research, Amorth gives an entertaining and illuminating account of perhaps one of the best-known saints of the twentieth century.

As parents, helping our children get to Heaven is of the utmost importance. As we look back through history and study the lives of the Saints, it is oftentimes easy to forget the role that the parents of these holy men and women played in their formation and ultimate salvation. In this book, discover the hidden heroes behind Saints Faustina, Giana Molla, Josemaría Escrivá, Pope John Paul II, Maximilian Kolbe, Padre Pio, Thérèse, and countless others. Learn how over 100 parents formed their children into great Saints by way of their virtuous lives.

Learn from one of the Church’s great mystics, Saint Frances of Rome. In this book, she narrates her visions to her spiritual director, Canon Giovanni Matteoni. He records her visions of the geography of hell and the state of limbo. She describes the punishments for various sins such as perverts, usurers, blasphemers, traitors, murderers, apostates, schismatics, incestuous people, witches and more. She also talks about the particular torments due to the seven deadly sins and the punishments for theft, dishonoring parents, breaking vows of chastity and selling daughters into prostitution.